


Breathless Apologies

by mxrtells



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, I love this garbage man and theres nothing you can do to stop me, Mention of Child Abuse, basically what was going through his mind between the time of his phone call to when frank arrived, billy has some unresolved feelings and I'm upset, spoilers for punisher s2 obv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 21:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17857316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxrtells/pseuds/mxrtells
Summary: As Billy Russo came to his last few breathes, he had a lot to think about.





	Breathless Apologies

Billy spluttered dark red on his cracked phone screen as he ended the call in a wheeze.

 

_He deserved this._

 

There was no doubt about it but something like white noise in the back of his brain, a constant haze and ringing in his ear asked _why?_

He sat sprawled against the wall of the room he once visited every week with people he could’ve called friends had he let them get close enough. The mustard stone now newly painted red as the residue from his wounds seeped through his clothing. 

Billy Russo was not the good guy. He never was and never would be and didn’t think he’d ever have been expected to be. In all honesty he’d never thought that men who killed for a living deserved to be anywhere near the sort, who was he to decide that those he killed in his time in the army really deserved it. He deserved it just as much. Maybe more so than most. 

As he sat marinating in his ever growing pool of blood he thought about how he could’ve done things differently. Of course, only when he was breathing his last breathe he decided to give thought to his actions. 

He was still hurt and confused and had just only accepted that he would never fully remember why he did what he did and how he did it and what was going through his mind as he killed some of the only people that had ever cared for him other than himself. Billy knew he was a selfish person, he used people for his own gain and left them on the sidewalk, abandoned once he’d gotten what he needed. But the _Castles?_ He didn’t want to believe it. They’d treated him like one of their own, their door always open and their home as much his as theirs. 

He remembered the first time visiting the family, he and Frank had been in the Middle East for five months and Billy almost wished it were longer when the time came for him to go home to a home he didn’t have. It wasn’t until Frank had noticed that he was being a lot more pessimistic than usual; a harder one to spot due to his naturally pessimistic upbringing, and had invited him over for dinner with the Castles on his first night back in the States. 

Billy had grudgingly accepted, not being a kin to family dinners or just family full stop. Growing up an orphan with the only parental figure being one that caused him pain, both mental and physical taught him that despite what people say, family is not the most important thing known to man. 

It almost made him feel sick when he was greeted at the door by the smell of a roast dinner and Frank in a tight fitting, checked blue shirt. Billy didn’t think he’d seen him wear anything so mundane and much like a traditional outfit for a father in a 60s commercial. His picture perfect wife at his side with his arm draped loosely around her waist, a little girl, pigtails and baby pink dress with frills around the seams and missing her two front teeth, and a boy, hiding behind his fathers figure, matching blue check shirt that seemed to be itching at his neck and a plastic revolver clutched in his hand, ready for any action to come his way.

Billy had only seen shit like this on TV, and even then, he hadn’t been sure of how realistic the portrayals actually were until he had stepped foot in that house. Feeling very under dressed at that, wearing a plain white T-shirt with a leather jacket and jeans. 

He was unsure at first, his almost natural fake charm failing him for the first time as he coyly took Maria Castles hand in his own, introducing himself. 

 _“Don’t worry about him, he’s shy”_ she smiled, gesturing towards the boy who now stared down Billy as if he was his opponent in a Western quickdraw. 

Billy gave the best smile he could manage and assured it was alright, he wasn’t the best with kids anyways, even when he was a kid himself. Whichever foster home had him for the month before they inevitably took him back “where he belonged” were always advised to keep him away from younger children; his reputation for being the rough and tumble type had given him a disadvantage when it came to families looking for a child to adopt, no matter how sweet a smile he could pull. Like a puppy in a pound wagging it’s tail and blinking his doe eyes til a family just couldn’t resist any longer. 

It wasn’t until his later years in life that those doe eyes seemed to work their charm. Though, maybe not with the same intentions. 

He remembered sitting at a dining table, post dinner (the best roast he had ever had, a fact he would bring up so much throughout the years that the Castles could predict his next line) Frank handing him another beer as they laughed recalling one of their stories from their travels. The kids were now in bed and Maria was comfortably lying in the crevice of Franks outstretched arm, head resting on his chest as she smiled listening to their voices. 

Billy had never felt so at peace in a home before. But there was something about it that he just couldn’t quite get used to in that it was just _too good to be true._

And he came to the agreement with himself that it must have been. Years later as he lay alone in Curt’s converted garage, shivering from either the cold or blood loss, he couldn’t quite decide.  

He loved that family. But he had torn them apart like pack of dogs and he still didn’t have the answer as to why, and now he never would. 

Maybe it was better that way, he thought. He had to live and die knowing he destroyed his best friends family. His own family. 

He probably didn’t deserve the closure. It would’ve meant that he’d come full circle and that wasn’t meant for men like him. They deserved to die as savagely as they had lived and well, Billy had most certainly achieved that. Three bullet wounds from a woman he’d impossibly fucked over in another life, one he couldn’t remember and another puncture in his side where the untrustworthy _“doctor”_ had proceeded to stitch him up before he passed out. Waking up in a dumpster, his getaway money gone and his list of people to turn to full of scored out names. 

He laughed, thinking about it. He probably should’ve stayed in the dumpster to die, it was probably the most symbolic for the man he’d become. 

Maybe if he has just gone straight to Frank from the get go things would be different. Maybe he’d be dead already if that were the case. It seemed it would be that way by the encounters they’d had post waking up in a psychiatric ward, face littered with scars he couldn’t remember the origins of. 

Despite that, something inside of him hoped that Frank would’ve helped him. Even if it were to give him closure before putting a bullet in his head that seemed like a fair deal to Billy under the circumstances. 

Maybe if he hadn’t gone to Krista for help things would even more so be different. He didn’t intend on everything that had happened with her, she was a little over eager, so much so he almost found it endearing. But she should’ve known better than to get involved in anything that Billy Russo was strung up in, he thought she’d have read enough files back to back of reasons to not make that decision. And he guessed she’d paid the price at her own expense.

Billy groaned in pain as he heaved, coughing up more blood onto his chest.  

The one thing that he had asked as his dying wish to Curtis was that he didn’t want to die alone. He knew that Curt was too good of a man to let that go, even with as much shit that Billy had done to the people around him. And so when he lifted his head up to see his best friend walk through the door, he couldn’t help but smile. 

 

It would _always_ be Frank, it was always going to be him. 

 

Wether it had been on a battlefield, hospital bed or sat in a worn armchair, wrinkles on their face, looking back on the old days. It would always be him.

And as he tried to use his last breathe to say sorry one conclusive time in his life, of course, the first and last thing Billy Russo would ever remember would be Frank Castle. 

**Author's Note:**

> me writing in 2019? more likely than you think. 
> 
> Also im still upset about the Punisher and yes I am completely aware that Mr Russo is GARBAGE!!! but I will pick him up off the sidewalk myself and put him in my pocket and there's nothing you can do about it. 
> 
> and guess I should say long time no see, I haven't written in around two years (not much has changed other than I probably have less braincells now and worse writing skills) but funny how I am only ever inspired to do so when i have ten deadlines for college work. The creative mind works in wonderful ways. 
> 
> anyways follow me on twitter for more general ben barnes rambling @biilyrvsso


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